Toshiba Satellite P755D review

The Toshiba Satellite P755D is a decent multimedia laptop, with a Blu-ray drive, Harman/Kardon stereo speakers, and a 15.6-inch widescreen high-def display. This "high-performance" model in Toshiba's "everyday value" Satellite line lists for $700 (as of April 2, 2012). Its quad-core AMD processor won't set any speed records, however.
Toshiba pays attention to multimedia. The Dolby Advanced and Waves MaxxAudio systems produce great sound even at high volume, both from the speakers and over earphones. An HDMI port lets you hook up to your HDTV to play Blu-ray movies, too. Regrettably, the 15.6-inch display has a relatively low resolution of 1366 by 768--and since the screen is mirror-shiny, avoiding reflections is hard.
The microphone port has a potentially handy feature called Toshiba Sleep and Music, which lets you play your MP3 player through the laptop's speakers, even when the laptop itself is powered off. In addition, you can charge your digital devices through the USB Sleep and Charge port, which also operates even when the laptop is turned off, though it will drain the battery unless you've plugged the laptop into the wall.

Ports are plentiful, including VGA, ethernet, three USB connections and one USB 3.0 port with the aforementioned Sleep and Charge, headphone and microphone jacks, a security lock slot, and a memory-card reader (on the front edge). The P755D also comes with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. The 640GB hard drive has a "Toshiba HDD Protection" impact sensor that automatically parks the drive head to protect the hard-drive surface from damage should you bump the laptop. A pop-up warns you if the machine is bumped and the heads are being parked; you will be surprised how easily you can provoke it into action.
Across the top of the keyboard are the power button and touch-sensitive buttons for wireless, the Eco power-saving utility, speaker on/off, and volume control.
The keyboard is nice: Its smooth, large, black keys are reasonably responsive, though their descent is not as deep as on a more expensive Dell Inspiron, for example. The multitouch touchpad is tricky to use--whenever I accidentally touched it with two fingers, the cursor froze, and each time I had to take a moment to figure out what was wrong. The touchpad buttons are a bit stiff, too. A button turns on a light for the control buttons across the top of the keyboard, as well as a light bar across the top of the touchpad, but the rest of the keyboard is not backlit.
Unfortunately, the performance of this affordable laptop isn't exactly stellar. The AMD Fusion A8-3520M processor can't keep up with Intel's Core i5 or i7 CPU on general computing tasks, and in our tests the P755D limped along with a modest WorldBench 7 score of 54. AMD is known for its integrated-graphics performance, and here the system takes a step up--at modest quality settings, you can play modern games at a reasonable performance level (in our tests, it ran Dirt 3 at 28 frames per second at high detail and the native screen resolution of 1366 by 768). The battery lasted 4 hours, 42 minutes, which is a middling result for this category of laptop.
The Satellite P755D comes with Microsoft Office Starter 2010, which consists of Word and Excel with advertising. That's the only major built-in application, though the laptop also comes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, plus Toshiba DVD playback software and a Corel Blu-ray player. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Corel Blu-ray player to work; I downloaded a free player to watch a Blu-ray movie, and that worked fine.
In addition to the Microsoft Live Essentials suite of Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, Messenger, and the Live Writer blogging application, Toshiba provides two custom programs: Toshiba Book Place for obtaining free and paid electronic books, and Toshiba Apps Place for accessing a lengthy list of small games, utilities, and applications (some are free, some are trials, a few are paid). Getting into Toshiba Book Place (a rebranded Blio book store) takes some time, however, as it requires moving through several lengthy and problematic software updates that you cannot bypass. Most of the programs in Toshiba Apps Place are minor, similar to those disks of freeware games and utilities you used to get with a computer magazine subscription.
The Toshiba Online Backup utility pops up early and cannot be dismissed; you must set it up whether you want to or not. I didn't want to, so I found this tool almost as annoying as the included Norton Internet Security, a pest of a program that nags you about activating the 30-day trial every time you start the computer. I suppose it might be wise to browbeat new computer users into installing some basic level of security, but experienced users with security preferences of their own will not be amused. As for missing applications, I thought Skype was installed--a Skype sticker sits right there on the keyboard--but the laptop has only a link to download Skype. Odd that it wouldn't be preinstalled.
The Toshiba Eco Utility, which you enable with the press of a button, automatically reduces the laptop's power consumption by turning down the screen brightness, shutting off the hard drive when not in use, putting the machine to sleep if idle, and adjusting CPU use (for this quad-core AMD A8, presumably it disables one or more cores when the system is under low load, though the documentation is not specific). It also displays a live graph of your wattage use, and even estimates how much less carbon dioxide you are causing to be emitted under the Eco feature. Leaving aside the arguable virtues of saving the Earth by turning off CPU cores, I guess this button can serve as a handy shortcut for extending the P755D's battery life when you're on a cross-country flight.
Hardware documentation consists of a startup card and an online guide buried in a Toshiba subdirectory. I know we're all about electronic documentation and preventing trees from being cut down just to explain the system, but at least the company could have put an icon to the online guide on the toolbar, or on the otherwise bare Windows 7 desktop. You get no software documentation at all.
At 5.4 pounds, the P755D is no ultralight, but it's not too heavy for its size; some weight savings may be due to the all-plastic casing. Fortunately, the plastic is solid and doesn't bend.
DISPLAY SIZE 15.6" widescreen DISPLAY TYPE* HD TruBrite® LED Backlit display DISPLAY RESOLUTION 1366x768 (HD), 16:9 aspect ratio, Supports 720p content AUDIO Headphone jack (stereo), Microphone jack (mono), Waves MaxxAudio® 3, harman/kardon® stereo speakers WEBCAM Webcam and microphone WIRELESS LAN* Wi-Fi® Wireless networking (802.11b/g/n) BLUETOOTH Bluetooth® V3.0 + HS MODEM No Modem port LAN 10/100 Ethernet LAN PROCESSOR* AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated Processor OPERATING SYSTEM* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) GRAPHICS ENGINE* AMD® Radeon™ HD 6520G MEMORY* 6GB DDR3 1333MHz memory HARD DRIVE* 640GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial ATA) OPTICAL DRIVE* Blu-ray Disc™ Rewriteable (RE) and DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash®

Price of Apple MacBook Air 11″ MC968HN/A in India

The moment you open your new MacBook, its glossy LED-backlit display greets you with glorious, full-screen brightness and brings your photos, movies, and presentations alive with luminous color. The widescreen resolution of 1366×768 pixels gives you plenty of room to multitask, yet it’s compact enough to take anywhere.
The first thing you might notice – or not notice – about the new MacBook Multi-Touch trackpad is the button. The entire trackpad is the button, so you can click anywhere on the touch-friendly glass surface.
Key Features
• Intel Core i5 Processor
• 2 GB RAM
• 64 GB Flash Hard Disk
• Mac OS X Operating System
• 11.6 Inch Screen
• Intel HD Graphics 3000 (256 MB)
• Light Weight
Price of Apple MacBook Air 11″ MC968HN/A in India is Rs. 56900/-
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Price of HP Pavilion g4-1200tu Notebook PC (QG463PA) (Charcoal Gray) in India

Powered with Intel Core i3 (2^nd Gen) processor, HP G6 excels in delivering stunning images, and smart multi-tasks at a rapid processing speed of 2.10 GHz. Capable of putting all your worries aside, it is equipped with HM65 Express chipset for better performance. Built for mobility, it is meant to serve the dual purpose of home as well as work environment.
Key Features
• Intel Core i3 (2nd Gen) Processor
• 2GB RAM
• 500 GB Hard Drive
• 14″ HD-LED screen
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & Web cam
Price of HP Pavilion g4-1200tu Notebook PC (QG463PA) (Charcoal Gray) in India is Rs. 32432/-
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Price of HP Pavilion DV6-6005TU Entertainment Notebook PC in India

This laptop delivers excellent performance as it is built on Intel HM65 chipset to run the mighty Intel 2nd Generation Core i3 2310M processor. This mighty processor runs on 2.1 GHz clock speed and 3 MB cache memory. Since the laptop is preloaded with Windows 7 Home Basic operating system, you can enjoy simple and user friendly navigation. Blessed with 4 GB DDR3 RAM, this affordable  laptop gives you power to work on multiple applications at a time. Now you can work on your laptop for hours as the laptop is installed with CoolSense Technology that automatically adjusts the cooling of the system, ensuring you work for a longer time while on move. The Intel HD Graphics 3000 will integrate stunning visuals for engrossing gaming.
Key Features
• Intel Core i3 (2nd Generation) – 2310M Processor
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• 500 GB Hard Disk
• 15.6″ Screen
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Basic
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
Price of HP Pavilion DV6-6005TU Entertainment Notebook PC in India is Rs. 38000/-
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Can I Bin My Laptop & Replace with Kindle Fire?

The main thing to remember about the Kindle Fire is that it is not a tablet, not a computer. It is not designed to compete with the iPad, and head to head it wouldn’t stand a chance. And although it may put some of the cheaper and more rudimentary tablets in their place it would struggle against the top brands in terms of capacity and responsiveness. Having said all that this is a very neat piece of kit and compared with its predecessors it is absolutely dripping with extras that make it a thoroughly enjoyable product to own.

Kindle Fire Specs:

At just under $200 it is reasonably priced for what it offers and probably fits fairly neatly into the general budget for a decent Christmas or Birthday gift without the need for breaking the bank. Priced as it is, producers Amazon, claim to be making a loss on the product itself, in the hope that they will redeem the loss on the cost of the item through the sales of apps, video, movies and books from the Amazon website on to the devices. You will need to be prepared to purchase all of the media you want to use through Amazon if you want to use it through the Fire as it is essentially just a media viewer, although a state of the art one, designed to help you access Amazon products.

The 7” screen is multi touch and very responsive, but not quite as intuitive as an iPad in following finger movements on screen. It uses technology called In Plane Switching which does allow for wide angle viewing, useful if you are sharing a movie with a friend, and the 1024 x 600 pixel 169 ppi gives the video display a nice rich effect. The screen itself is made from gorilla glass, superbly tough and you shouldn’t worry about needing screen protectors, as the average set of keys, or other random metallic objects that you might have stowed in the bottom of your bag pose no real threat at all.  It does weigh in at a reasonably hefty 413 grams and although this is lighter than the iPad (600grams), if you do find yourself without your stand it is difficult to hold for sustained reading/viewing times.

Like a Computer, but not a Computer:

You have to remind yourself that this is not a computer, but with the combination of the high speed dual core processor, some of the creative apps and the fast internet browsing it does feel like you have a device which is all but in name a PC.  Load it up with Office Suite Pro 5, Exchange By TouchDown, (and Facebook, of course!) and you might as well be at your desk. The web browser silk is an innovative feature and something of which Amazon are rightly boastful, although not all websites are sized perfectly on screen, access and flow between web pages is smooth and load time is minimal. Overall if you were looking to replace your tired old laptop, notebook or PC you could probably manage with the Kindle Fire and not suffer to greatly (if at all) as a consequence.

Storage Issues:

Storage on the device itself is an issue. It comes with 8GB as standard, which for a media playing device, given the current direction in terms of file size in terms of definition and quality, that media is going, 8GB is hopelessly inadequate. You look at the numbers and almost shout, “What were they thinking?” Particularly as it doesn’t come with an SD Card Slot. Especially as included in the 8GB is the 1.5GB OS, leaving you with 6.5GB; enough to hold 1 movie, 20 apps, 200 songs and a couple of hundred books in total. Not really the greatest media catalogue in the world. Amazon were of course thinking, as everyone is, with their heads in the cloud. And the cloud here is an excellent feature, with 5gb of free storage and for a buck a year you can get an extra gigabyte, giving you the storage without the hassles of cluttering the device and worrying about download times.

Overall the Kindle Fire is kit definitely worth having, it will not stand up against and Ultrabook, or iPad, but against a standard notebook, it performs fairly well and as a media viewer it is in a class of its own. Its major plus point lies in its price, which is no fortune and won’t require a large online balance transfer so the Kindle Fire should not be passed by simply because of its shortcomings.